


Ultimatum

by DragonRose35



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Male Slash, Season 1 Spoilers, Season 2 Episode 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8403658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonRose35/pseuds/DragonRose35
Summary: Reese can talk to the Machine. It’s not like Root’s relationship with Her, however, because in the end, there is only one person that Reese will listen to.She really should have understood that a little better.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Take note that I am... not incredibly proud of this fic. But it was only because the idea demanded to be written and it wouldn't leave me alone until I did write it. So here you go.
> 
> ~ D.C.

Reese had a secret. One he wasn’t sure Harold knew- suspected, yes. But knew? No. The first time he spoke to Her- yes, her, because Root had gotten inside his head somehow about that and he just started referring to the Machine as a female entity- it was the night that Finch had tied him to the bed before taunting him with a number that he couldn’t save.

_ “Can. You. Hear. Me?” _ She asked him when Finch had left him in peace and he scowled at the radio Her voice was coming from. He tried to turn it off, but he couldn’t. She always found a speak to him.  _ “Admin. Is. Right.” _

“Fuck you,” he hissed at her, clenching his fists tightly against the table top inside the putrid apartment. “I don’t need any of this.”

_ “Numbers. Need. You.” _

It wasn’t Her that convinced him to help Finch, of course it wasn’t. It never will be.

The second time She spoke to him was when he was helping Joey, a former soldier like him, when Finch had lost contact with him.  _ “Ruthless. Unhinged. Now.” _ He hadn’t figured out yet what some of the things She has said meant, but he understood that one well enough.

He’d ignored Her though. He met Finch at the bank, who told him what he already figured out and then went and saved the day anyway. Joey was safe, but he was the only one.

_ “Can. You. Hear. Me?” _ He snorted at hearing the familiar words before discarding the earwig and his phone and he readied to take a nice, long, hot shower.

When She contacted him again, it wasn’t until Mark Snow caught up to him and shot him, twice. He managed to escape before Snow could do anymore damage, but he had feared it would already be too late. “Finch,” he choked out, relieved to hear his boss’- his partner’s- voice, the edges of his vision already fuzzy as he made his way, hobbling really, down the stairs of the parking garage building.

_ “Mr. Reese, hold on. I’m on my way to you now-” _ Finch tried to say, but Reese cut him off.

“No. No, leave me. You’ll only get caught,” the ex-operative groaned, when he stumbled and the wound on his stomach was jarred by the metal railing he bumped into.

_ “Admin. Needs. You.” _

“No…  _ no _ .” Reese shook his head sharply. “Get out of here…!  _ Please _ …”

He doesn’t remember all that much, only that Finch had come to rescue him- to get him to safety. He’d found someone to patch him up and despite all the trouble Reese had caused him, hadn’t dumped him somewhere on the side of the road.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Reese asked the surveillance camera that he had almost walked past on his way back to the Library. “You had to of known the probability that we’d both be caught. You care what happens to him, don’t you?”

_ “Yes.” _

“Then why didn’t you stop him!?” Reese shouted, aware that he probably looked insane, shouting at a camera in the middle of the street- though there was hardly anybody around, being the middle of the night.

_ “Admin. Needs. You.” _ was all She said and he refused to talk to Her further.

She had tried to contact him several more times after that, but he’d ignored her- though not without a cost, as Finch had surely been noticing. “You look tired, Mr. Reese,” Finch told him, one night, and Reese shrugged.

“I’m fine, Harold.” he told him, leaning against the wall and he closed his eyes. “I’ve just been wondering…” he trailed off, frowning to himself as Harold made a noise in confusion and curiosity. “No, never mind. It’s nothing,” Reese smiled, as if to disarm Finch, but it never worked. He shouldn’t surprised.

Luckily though, the older man never pried any further, either. “Alright, Mr. Reese. Go home, we likely won’t have a new number until morning.”

It was an order, to rest. One that Reese obliged, with little difficulty.

Leila was a blessing and a curse in disguise. He loved her, so much. Finch did too, and both of them were so very protective over her. He was still beating himself up when Elias had turned on him, all for the sake of information about a safe house that contained his pathetic excuse for a father.  _ “Ruin. Unsafe. Narrow.” _ Run. She wanted him to run. But how could he? When Leila’s life was in danger?

“H-help… me…” he gritted out, tears running down his cheeks when he was in the refrigeration truck, Leila’s cold body held tightly in his arms. “P-please…”

She didn’t though. And he had to give up the safe house anyway.

Leila was saved, in the end, and John wasn’t sure if he was supposed to regret any part of that little mission.

Then Root happened. And Reese had felt so lost. “You don’t understand,” he snarled at the camera. “Your Admin was just  _ taken _ and he could be dead! And you don’t seem to care about him!”

He was bristling with anger and She didn’t respond.

“Help me find him! Find him!” he paused here and scowled up at the camera, fists clenching against his sides. “If you don’t, I will be forced to burn every last city of this miserable, God forsaken world, to find him. And when I do, I can promise you, nothing will save Root from me. Or anyone that gets in my way.”

An ultimatum. One She had no choice but to consider, and do what he asked of Her.

She had tried to guide him, the entire time, but he refused to listen to Her. “No,  _ no _ .” he hissed at Her. “You don’t get to tell me what to do or how to do things. I don’t accept- I  _ won’t _ follow your orders. You can help Harold all you want, I don’t care. But you will  _ never _ tell me what to do again.” he told Her, resolute. “Harold is the only one that I’ll listen to. That can order me around. Tell me what to do. Do you understand me?” She didn’t understand and he growled in return. “Answer me!”

_ “Yes.” _

When he had found Harold, nothing could have prepared him for the amount of relief he’d felt, having the older man in his sight, in his arms, again. “Mr. Reese… I really didn’t intend for you to come find me.”

Reese snorted at that and shook his head, clenching one fist tightly as he kept the other always somewhere on Finch’s person. “You underestimate me, then, Finch,” he said, voice low, holding a bit of steel inside, but it was still soft, when he directed it towards the other.

“How did you find me?” Finch asked, then, hesitant. And for good reason.

“I gave the Machine a choice.” was all Reese said and Harold sucked in a sharp breath, somehow…  _ somehow _ knowing what that meant.

“I always knew… but I never understood… it talks to you. Somehow.” Finch sighed and Reese shrugged, getting the older man situated in the car he just found.

“Tries. It tries to. I won’t listen.” John said, glancing up at Harold with a smile. “The only one that matters, anyway, is you.”


End file.
